


we break and we make our mistakes

by blithelybonny



Series: call me son (one more time) [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Fun for who though idk, M/M, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Power Imbalance, Undernegotiated Kink, and these two definitely don't, but with fun Present Pimms feelings, more like communication is for people who have their shit together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithelybonny/pseuds/blithelybonny
Summary: Kent calls Bob on the road back to Boston from Epikegster 2014.





	we break and we make our mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> With all the thanks to my dear friend SummerFrost who is a delight and who enjoys suffering and the suffering of others right along with me and who helped inspire and contributed some juicy images here. Ilu <3
> 
> Title is from Hamilton because of course it is.

“Where are you?” Bob asks on a soft exhale, as he tries to keep the pain and the worry and the bone-deep weariness behind his teeth and out of his tone. But he’s not stupid—it’s 3 AM, and the Aces are in Boston, and Kent only calls when he fucks up.

There’s only the sound of the wind rushing past the open windows (or more likely the convertible top) for a long moment before Kent answers on a sigh of his own, “Almost home.”

“Should you be driving right now? How much have you had to drink?”

“Not enough,” he snarks, but there’s no malice in it. He just sounds exhausted.

Bob pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at the screen, as if he can will Jack into calling him or texting or something, but then their relationship has always been strained. He and Jack had hockey, and they have it again now, sort of, and things are getting better, but if Jack’s hurting, he’s going to call Alicia, and Bob’s going to have to hear about it later and pretend that he doesn’t know the other side. He stares at the screen, but it’s only the seconds ticking away next to Kent Parson’s name.

When he puts it back to his ear, Kent is talking. “—wouldn’t know, but maybe...maybe. So was it? Was it real?”

“Kent, what happened?”

“Answer me first,” Kent demands.

“No,” Bob replies, and only regrets it a little that the authority in his tone was entirely on purpose because he knows, even though he shouldn’t, that it’ll make Kent sit up and pay attention. “First tell me if you’re okay to be driving right now.”

“Maybe not.” His words are clipped with annoyance, which is better than slurred, but not by much. “I’m tired.”

Bob exhales slowly, tries to pull himself together so he doesn’t yell. Or panic. “Can you pull over for a while?”

“Not in this car.”

“Kenny—son, pull over for a minute,” Bob pleads.

There’s a long silence, and then a quiet, _okay_.

While Kent pulls over and kills the engine, Bob puts the phone down and rakes his hands through his hair a few times. Then, when he trusts himself not to fuck everything to hell, he picks the phone back up and asks, “Are you safe?”

“M’never safe Bob,” Kent answers, and something wistful comes through the fake salty laughter Kent follows it with.

It’s true in so many ways; this thing with Kent, whatever the fuck it is—they’ve never put a name on it, and Bob refuses to be the one to do it because that would mean acknowledging that it’s not normal and that he’s so incredibly messed up by the bright-eyed, talented, smart-assed son he never actually had.

“What happened, Kenny?” he settles for asking, even though he really wants to ask _what did you do, Kenny?_ because that’s probably the more correct question.

“Fucked up like I always fucking fuck up,” he replies bitterly. “But you knew that. Don’t play dumb.”

“Don’t speak to me that way,” Bob admonishes; his voice deepens, but shame colors his cheeks when he picks up on the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone and realizes that he’s already half-hard.

Kent says nothing for another long moment, and then, after a shaky exhale, he asks, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, I answered yours. You answer mine.”

Bob has to take a moment to think back, but then, “Was what real?” even though he’s certain he knows.

“Tell me it was real,” Kent says, and he’s not quite begging, but it’s a near thing. Bob can hear it in the way his breath starts to back up on him. He’s pushing out the questions like they’ll choke him if he doesn’t force them out. “Was it real? Was any of it real? Did I make it all up? Did he ever love me? Did he ever once even for a fucking second? Did he ever love me, Bob?”

The worst part is that Bob honestly doesn’t fucking know.

“He fucked me so many times, Bob. He fucked me so, so, so many fucking times. He fucked me all over your goddamn house, and it felt so good every single fucking time. Even that first time when we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing, goddamnit, Bob, it felt like I was drowning in him, and-and-and, I just—” Kent cuts off with a ragged, frustrated noise like he wants to scream but can’t get the air, “—did he take after her? Was it all just an act? Is Jack as good at acting as Alicia is? But how do you—how do you _fake_ that? How can he be that good? How do you—how do you fucking—how do you fuck somebody so good—”

“—Kenny, stop!” Bob cuts him off, and it sounds like he’s hyperventilating on the other end of the phone, and this, this at least, Bob knows how to handle now. He’s learned the hard way, but he knows now how to handle a panic attack. He shoves down his own rising panic and says, “Breathe with me, son. Match my breaths. In for three, out for five.”

“NO!” Kent shouts at him. “No, just fucking tell me! Tell me that he loved me! Do you even know? Do you know anything about it? Did he love me?”

“Kenny, I can’t—”

“Do _you_ love me?”

“Kent, you know I—”

“ _Do you love me, Daddy?_ ”

And it’s just so unfair. He does it every time he’s losing, because he’s a desperate little shit who’ll do whatever it takes no matter who he has to hurt in the process to get the win. Bob doesn’t know where he learned that from, except that he absolutely fucking does, and he hates that he’s not blameless. But more than that, he hates that he’s sitting on the family room couch in his massive, empty house in Montreal at three in the morning on the phone with his son’s ex-boyfriend and so hard that his baggy boxer shorts are straining tight against his thighs.

It’s the little whine in Kent’s tone when he says it. The vulnerable whimper that, hell it might not even be real, but it feels like it’s directed like a laser beam straight into Bob’s gut. It curls up warm in his lower belly, but like ice in his chest that’s being sawed through and cracked apart, it hurts so much, and he hates it, he _hates_ it, and he loves it.

“Of course I love you, Kenny,” he replies. As if he could say anything else.

“Show me?” Kenny breathes, but it’s less a question than a demand.

Bob knows who’s in charge of all of this—who always has been. He knows who checks dirty, and he knows who has to skate through it. “Okay, Baby,” he answers, as he closes his eyes against the shame and slips his hand into his boxers. “Are you somewhere safe?”

Kent chuckles darkly. “Already told you, Bob. I’m never safe.”


End file.
